Carousel Digital Signage and Jamf Pro
Carousel is an enterprise digital signage CMS allowing users to create and manage content on their screens. Carousel pushes content to Apple TV media players to display this content. Carousel Player App must be installed on each Apple TV displaying content. This is where Jamf comes in! With Jamf you can easily install and configure the Carousel Player App on all of your AppleTV's.
Prerequisites
This documentation assumes you have Jamf Pro 10.7 or higher, an Apple Volume Purchasing Program (such as Apple Business Manager, or Apple School Manager) account and devices available in Automated MDM Enrollment. You will also need Carousel 7.1 or higher.
Carousel Player is only available for Apple TVs
It is recommended your Apple TVs are running tvOS 12. This makes future updates to tvOS easier.
Configure PreStage Enrollment
The first step is to sign into your Jamf Pro instance. Go to ‘Devices’ and then to ‘PreStage Enrollments’.
Create a new PreStage Enrollment. Set the PreStage Enrollment ‘Display Name’ to “Carousel”. Then go to the ‘Mobile Device Names’ tab and set a naming method. Best practice is to use ‘Serial Numbers’ with the prefix of Carousel.
Next scope the new PreStage Enrollment to the Apple devices you would like to use as Players using the ‘Scope’ tab to select available devices.
Smart Device Group
Click on ‘Smart Device Groups’ under the ‘Groups’ heading in the sidebar. Set the ‘Display Name’ to “Carousel Smart Group”. Go to the ‘Criteria’ tab to add ‘Enrollment Method: PreStage enrollment. Set the ‘Value’ to the name of the PreStage Enrollment and ‘Save’.
Purchase the App for Deployment
Carousel Player (tvOS only) - For on-premise Carousel 7 installations
Open a new tab and open the appropriate App Store:
- Apple Business Manager - https://business.apple.com/
- Apple School Manager - https://school.apple.com/
- Legacy Volume Purchase Program Stores
- Legacy Buisness Volume Purchase Program - https://vpp.itunes.apple.com/us/app/carousel-player/id1244188551?mt=8
- Legacy Education Volume Purchase Program - https://volume.itunes.apple.com/us/app/carousel-player/id1244188551?mt=8
For Legacy Volume Purchase Program Stores use the direct links above to find the app (Apple does not show results for tvOS apps). For Business or School Manager, go to the ‘Apps and Books’ link under ‘Content’ in the sidebar. Then search for Carousel Player.
Best practice for purchasing is to acquire 110% coverage for your system. If you are planning to have 50 Apple devices, purchase 55 licenses.
Configure Mobile Device App
Return to Jamf Pro and go to ‘Mobile Device Apps’. After processing it will appear in the list of available apps.
General tab
Set a ‘Display Name’ for the app or choose to leave the default. Change the ‘Distribution Method’ to ‘Install Automatically/Prompt Users to Install’. Choose ‘Schedule Jamf Pro to automatically check iTunes for app updates’ or ‘Automatically Force App Updates’ or leave them disabled to manually update when you choose.
Scope tab
Under Targets, click ‘Add’, then choose ‘Mobile Device Groups’ and then click ‘Add’ next to the ‘Carousel Smart Group’.
VPP tab
Enable the ‘Assign VPP Content’ checkbox.
App Configuration tab
Carousel Player - For on-premise Carousel 7 installations
Enter the following in the ‘Preferences’ text box:
<dict>
<key>server</key>
<string>https://YOURSERVER.com</string>
<key>udid</key>
<string>$UDID</string>
</dict>
Replacing the <string> element with the address of your Carousel Server
Click ‘Save’
Create Configuration Profiles
Baseline Security
We recommend creating a baseline security configuration profile restricting AirPlay on the Apple TV along with any other restrictions you would like to apply.
Carousel - Single App Mode tvOS
We highly recommend any Apple TV being used for digital signage run in Single App Mode. This will limit the screen to only showing Carousel, unless AirPlay overrides it.
Create a new Configuration Profile and set the ‘Name’ to “Carousel - Single App Mode”. While in the ‘Options’ tab, scroll the sidebar down to find ‘Single App Mode’, select it and then press ‘Configure’ in the main pane. Set the ‘Targeted Operating System’ to ‘tvOS’. Fill in the ‘Bundle ID’ with either “com.trms.CarouselPlayer”
Complete the process by scoping the applicable Configuration Profiles to the ‘Carousel Smart Group’
Carousel - AirPlay Interrupt (optional)
If you would like Carousel to interrupt AirPlay sessions when alert content is triggered you will need to create an additional configuration profile. This profile will turn off AirPlay so the Apple TV goes back into single app mode, showing only the Carousel Player App.
There is no need to scope this to any groups, as Carousel will do this automatically after the additional configurations below.
Create Jamf User Service Account
Click into ‘Settings’ in the upper-right corner, then on ‘Jamf Pro User Accounts & Groups’, then ‘New’. Select ‘Create Standard Account’ and set the ‘Username’ to “Carousel”. Leave the new account set for ‘Full Access’ and ‘Custom’ respectively for ‘Access Level’ and ‘Privilege Set’. In the ‘Privileges’ tab, within the ‘Jamf Pro Server Objects’ option enable the following:
- Mobile Device Configuration Profiles
- Read
- Update
- Mobile Devices
- Read
- Static Mobile Device Groups
- Create
- Read
- Update
- Delete
Then ‘Save’.
Authenticate Carousel with Jamf Pro
Login to your Carousel user interface and go to Configure -> System -> External Authentication. Click on ‘New’ and set the ‘Type’ to ‘Jamf Pro’. Give the authentication a ‘Name’ and fill in the information about your Jamf Pro instance, using the service account we just created. Click ‘Save’.
Enable MDM Configuration Profiles
In Carousel user interface and go to Configure -> Zones. Select the ‘Edit’ icon for a Full Screen Alert zone. Scroll down to ‘Alert Settings’ and choose the ‘MDM Configuration Profile’ we setup in the sections above. The 2 options for ‘Force Profile When’ are:
- Alerts are Active - Will stop any current AirPlay sessions and not allow new ones while the alert is up.
- An Alert is Triggered - Will stop any current AirPlay sessions, but allow them to reconnect after a short period of time.
Finished!
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It’s over.
Go play with your new Carousel Digital Signage powered by Jamf.
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